Candidates Tournament Round 13

There was a very tense atmosphere in round 13 of the London Candidates Tournament - the penultimate day of the competition. Both Vladimir Kramnik and Magnus Carlsen were absolutely determined to win their games against Boris Gelfand and Teimour Radjabov respectively.

Vladimir Kramnik had the advantage of the white pieces and played the novel idea 5.e3 in a fianchetto Gruenfeld sideline, putting Gelfand under great pressure and eventually winning a pawn. But Gelfand was tenacious in defence, finding the crucial move 38...Rd8 as the time control approached to save the game.

A relaxed Boris Gelfand before the game

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Kramnik pressed hard, but Gelfand was equal to the task

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Magnus Carlsen had the black pieces against Teimour Radjabov, and opted for the Nimzo-Indian after Radjabov played 1.d4. Radjabov slowly drifted into a slightly worse endgame, and Carlsen kept trying everything he could to keep the game alive and induce a mistake from his opponent. Deep into the 6th hour of the game Radjabov was surviving almost solely on the 30 second time increment and Carlsen picked up a vital pawn. Finally, incredibly, after nearly 7 hours of play Carlsen won the game!

The first game to finish today was the encounter between Peter Svidler and Vassily Ivanchuk. The spinning roulette wheel that seems to determine Chucky's choice of opening in this tournament stopped today at the French Defence. Svidler obtained a pleasant game with the advance variation and as Ivanchuk struggled to cope with his inferior position he lost on time for the fifth time in the tournament.

Despite his loss to Vladimir Kramnik yesterday, Lev Aronian still had a mathematical chance of winning the tournament, but even that minuscule possibility vanished when he only drew with Alexander Grischuk, in the second game to finish today.

Alexander Grischuk and Lev Aronian drew their game

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So Magnus Carlsen and Vladimir Kramnik both have a score of 8½/13 going into the final round tomorrow. But Carlsen has the superior tie-break score, so as long as he achieves at least the same result as Kramnik he will win the tournament. Carlsen has white against Svidler, and Kramnik has black against Ivanchuk.

The standings after 13 rounds

Name

Fed

Elo

Pts

Magnus Carlsen

NOR

2872

8½

Vladimir Kramnik

RUS

2810

8½

Peter Svidler

RUS

2747

7

Levon Aronian

ARM

2809

7

Boris Gelfand

ISR

2740

6

Alexander Grischuk

RUS

2764

6

Vassily Ivanchuk

UKR

2757

5

Teimour Radjabov

AZE

2793

4

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The 2013 Candidates Tournament runs from 14 March - 2 April in London, with the winner earning the right to challenge current world champion Vishy Anand for the title.

The tournament is an 8-player double round-robin event and the venue is The IET at 2 Savoy Place on the banks of the river Thames. The total prize fund is €510,000 (approx 665,000 USD).

All rounds start at 14:00 GMT, and the time control is 2 hours for 40 moves, then an extra hour added for the next 20 moves, then 15 minutes more with a 30 second increment to finish.

What's wrong with playing out drawn endgames? If it's a draw, prove it by actually drawing!

Absolutely Carlsen should do the same vs Anand if he's the winner after tomorrow.

Lot of hipocrites around here, most of these Carlsen hatters and critics saying he only wins by grinding drawn endgames I'm sure have complained in the past when there are lots of draws or short draws in other events.

Anand and any other player knows they are in for tough fight and countless marathons if they face Magnus in a match because he won't give anybody short draws. If Anand got used and confy with short draws vs Gelfand last time around, he better dust off his endgame books and plays fast to not fall in time pressure, otherwise he'll get run over by Magnus if he's indeed the challenger.

I still can't get over how so many are complaining that some Magnus tried to play game to bitter end, Fischer wanted Draws not to count . Makes sense. Saying he just wore his player down to win is suppose to be part of game. In all other sports that is part of sport or game. You can say many of the games in by them they did not take enough risks, that is done in all sports. Blaming a player for losing on time and saying it's fixed is also wrong, Chucky is known as a slow player, you should remmeber time controlls use to be longer back in 70s.

On if it's tied I think there should be a best of 3 , with person who had won tie breaker getting white twice.

Tomorrow the cards are stacked in favor of Carlsen. Highly likely he will win against Svidler with white.

That is a neat trick of Magnus we have already seen several times - wearing out the opponent (Radjabov) in a long-drawn even endgame under time pressure till he cracks. It just might work against the elderly Anand in the WC!

I knew from the bigining you did'nt want carlsen to win, you tried to make some speech making carlsen look bad only because you dont like him, but very deep in you, you know he is the best player in the world right now, and to be fear you have to admit that even carlsen dont win this tournement, he is best and the one with more chances to beat anand

For all those who are saying that Carlsen doesn't even deserve a shot at the title because he looks mediocre:

Are you serious? His loss to Ivanchuck was what- his first loss in 6 months? We can argue about style, aesthetics, "cheap endgame tricks" or whatever, but you can't argue that he's not good at what he does- because clearly, he is.

@MindWalk... thus my point, if you start by playing safe against the 2nd and 3rd seeds then you aren't better than they are... maybe you are marginally better than they are, but we don't want a marginal challenger we want a guy who can give Anand a run for his money, and Anand is a deadly match player.

As far as rating goes, Carlsen's dad chaperones him from tournament to tournament from the toilet to the chess board, he just has that much more access to free travel and a personal maid by his side... if you enter that many ITs then your rating anturally improves... so it don't impress me too much his high rating... of course its impressive, but lets not worship the horse because it enters more races.

Gelfand was rated somewhere around fifteenth in the world when he got his title shot. Carlsen is the highest-rated player ever and outrates everybody else by over fifty points. The two are hardly comparable.

I think it's a shame that Carlsen was paired against Aronian and Kramnik in rounds one and two, and again in rounds eight and nine, instead of playing them later. As it was, Carlsen was able to play it safe against them. Imagine if Carlsen and Kramnik played in the last round!

Magnus has been an over hyped disappointment... We were all expecting a Fischer-like performance, all we are seeing is a mediocre grinding out of opponents and a sterile performance against Aronian and Kramnik.

Apparently he may win on tie-break, a sort of lottery of the chess world, because he wasn't good enough to demolish the field and take the thing outright. Very disappointing from Carlsen. I know this kid is good for chess because apparently little girls in Norway will suddenly ask their daddies to buy them panties with chess board prints, but I think Carlsen is over-hyped and doesn't deserve the title shot any more than Gelfand did.

Anyone whose rating is the highest ever and far above anybody else's deserves to play for the title. So, I've wanted Carlsen to win from the very start.

But Kramnik has been playing better chess, for the most part. He's only drawn a few games that could have turned into wins, while Carlsen has salvaged a few draws that could easily have turned into losses. If quality of play mattered more than results, Kramnik would be in the lead ahead of Carlsen.

I would not bet against Carlsen in any match. He does not lose any games easy and he grinds out wins no one else can. I think Calsen can win tomorrow. Peter is a good player having a great tournament, but he was the second lowest rated player coming in, and he is playing black against the best with everything on the line. Remember Gelfand v. Anand? Anand only won 1 of 12. Carlsen is 2-0 against Gelfand this tournament.

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